


Ashes to Ashes

by Greysgate



Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 23:37:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14604240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greysgate/pseuds/Greysgate
Summary: Ennis finds a way to his own kind of peace after Jack's death.





	Ashes to Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> Written just after I saw the movie, and had to write this. Consider it an epilogue.   
> There was just SO much in that scene with Jack's parents, especially his mom, that I had to keep it going. She and Ennis had an understanding. She knew from the moment he walked up to her out on the porch that this man had truly loved her son, and she'd have done anything to keep that connection. He would have, too. Each was all the other had left of Jack, and I believe they'd have stayed in touch. I can see him working that ranch in his spare time till the day he died, or till she did, just to be close to one another, as a way for both to hold onto Jack. Ennis would've become like a son to her, and she'd have been like the mother he could barely remember. 
> 
> And somehow, I have to believe that even Jack's father would have eventually come around and learned to care a little about this man who asked for nothing, and offered them everything he was and all he had, just because they had given him Jack.
> 
> *crying my eyes out here*

Nearly half a cord of wood was chopped and neatly stacked near the back door of the ancient, weather-beaten white house.  The sun felt good against Ennis’ back, though he was more tired than he could remember being in a while.  Parts of him ached, but it was from honest, hard work, and that felt good.

He took off his beat-up old straw hat, wiped his brow on the sleeve of his shirt, and re-settled the hat back onto his head.  Setting the axe back into the old stump, just deep enough to lodge it properly, he stacked the last of the wood on top of the pile.  He reached for the Mason jar that sat on the base of an upturned bucket nearby, finding that the glass was still cold as he drained the last of the lemonade Mrs. Twist had kept there while he worked.

Ennis straightened and stretched, bending his back and spreading his arms wide with a weary groan.  He’d done a lot of work around the old place that day.  He’d set a bunch of fence posts in the north pasture – more than he thought he could count – followed by hauling down several bales of hay from the loft in the barn.  Then he’d chopped enough wood to last Jack’s mother for several months, for the wood stove in her kitchen.  It was a good day’s work, but he was more than ready for the long drive home, back to Riverton. 

He’d done this every weekend for nearly a month – appearing on the Twists’ doorstep each Saturday morning, not long after the roosters crowed their warning of another daybreak.  Hat in hand, shuffling from one foot to another on the sagging front porch, he’d always offered to help with any chores that needed doing. Each time, Jack’s father had given him a disapproving look before disappearing into the house.

Mrs. Twist, on the other hand, had smiled at Ennis, the upturning of her lips a tiny, trembling thing, as if she’d forgotten how to do it.  That first morning, she’d taken him out to the shed and asked if he knew anything about water pumps.  _Yes, ma’am_ , he’d told her, _I reckon I do_ , and Ennis had fiddled with it until it was fixed.  When he’d finished with that, her nod of approval was his only reward before she’d quietly directed him to the next chore that needed doing, and the next, and the next. 

When he was done for the day, Jack’s mother always had a hot meal packaged up for him, ready to go, alongside another Mason jar, this one filled with fresh milk from one of their cows.  Every Saturday night was spent the same way; he drove a few miles down the road to a rest stop, where he ate the food, curled up on the front seat of the truck, and slept. 

In the morning, with the first rays of pink sunlight piercing the sky, he got up and went to the ranch to go back to work.  It was obvious that Mr. Twist didn’t want him around; his wife dared not make Ennis truly welcome, but neither did she turn him away.  As for Ennis, he never questioned why he was there or what he was doing.  He was just doing what he had to.  The reasons didn’t matter, at least to him.

He’d seen in Mrs. Twist’s eyes how much she’d loved her son, even though Ennis was pretty sure she knew the truth about him and Jack.  She’d been surprised enough, when he’d showed up that first time, asking for Jack’s ashes.  But she’d let Ennis take home their married shirts, without making any kind of a fuss.  She’d even given him a paper grocery bag to put them in for the trip, to keep them safe; to keep them private from the rest of the world.  Without saying a word, she’d looked into his eyes and told him she knew Jack had loved him; she was glad he’d been loved in return.  She’d seemed to know everything that mattered, and Ennis had connected with her in that brief first visit, as Jack seemed to hover in the air between them, linking them together.

Ennis couldn’t let that go.  So he’d returned again and again, simply because he had no choice, though he didn’t understand at first.  The more he worked at the Twist place, the more he could feel Jack around him.  He could see Jack in his mother’s eyes, in the rebirth of her long-forgotten smile, and he loved her for that.  He would be there for her, to do what he could to make her lot in life easier.  If that meant helping out with chores, then he’d do it, no questions asked, no wages expected.  He owed it to her, for giving him Jack.

She’d told him a couple of weeks back that they’d be burying Jack’s ashes tomorrow.  Ennis swallowed down the lump in his throat, knowing there was nothing he could do about that.  For a little while, he’d toyed with the idea of digging Jack up and carrying his ashes off to Brokeback in the dead of night.  No one would know, if he did it before the ground could settle, and Jack would have his wish.  But that didn’t seem right, unburying the dead; it hadn’t taken much for Ennis to talk himself out of that idea.

Jack and Ennis had been separated for most of their lives, and death didn’t feel much different.  They were parted forever now, unless maybe they could find each other in Hell.  Both of them were sinners; it was obvious now to Ennis that that’s where he was bound, and there was no help for it.  Besides, if Jack were in Hell, Ennis wouldn’t want to be in Heaven without him, so he’d go gladly when his time came.

Then again, maybe they’d all got it wrong.  God was supposed to be all about love.  Isn’t that what the preachers said?  Couldn’t someone as great and powerful as God love folks like him and Jack, too?  Might Jack be in Heaven after all?  Ennis didn’t know about stuff like that, and there weren’t nobody he could ask, so he just put that thought away.  He figured he’d have to find out when his time came, like everybody else.

With a sigh, he licked his lips, tasting the sticky, tart-sweet residue left on his mouth from the lemonade.  He strolled toward the back door of the house, where Mrs. Twist met him on the porch, just as she had the first time he came to see them.  She had a brown paper bag in her hands; the top was folded closed and rolled down to make a good handle.  That would be today’s dinner, prepared with loving hands, and he would enjoy it, since Mrs. Twist was a good cook.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he told her politely, reaching out for the bag.

She didn’t hold it out to him, just continued to clutch it for a moment longer.  Then she stepped off the porch and strolled away, off toward the garage, where his beat-up old blue and white truck was parked. He followed her, assuming she wanted to talk about something, but she didn’t say a word.

When they got there, she moved on past the truck and stopped beside a big, rusted-out metal trashcan, its sides blistered out and a big, black scorch-mark around the lip.  Traces of grayish white debris clung to the open edge, and she peered inside the barrel for a second, just a glance, before handing the paper sack to Ennis.  She smiled at him then, full and wide, and Ennis saw Jack so clearly in her face, it gave his heart a jolt of pure, aching pain.

“Had to burn some trash this past week,” she told him conversationally.  “Just some old papers and such.  Phone books and a Sears catalog or two.  All things I’d been meanin’ to get rid of, don’tcha know.”

As Ennis took the bag she handed him, he noted it was heavier than usual.  He didn’t understand her comment about the trash, or why she had pointed it out to him.  “Yes, ma’am.”  He nodded and touched the brim of his hat in parting.  “See ya t’morrow at the cemetery, Miz Twist.  ‘Bout ten o’clock?”

“No, Ennis.”  She shook her head.  “Mr. Twist won’t want you there; it’s private, you understand.  For family.”  She reached out and patted his arm.  “You go on up to that there mountain, son.”  Her blue eyes, so much like Jack’s, searched his face.  “That’s where my son woulda wanted you t’remember him.”

Ennis felt his throat close up.  His eyes filled with tears as he finally understood, and he clutched the paper bag in his fingers a little tighter.  His heart was hurting again, but this time with gratitude for her generosity.  He wanted to thank her, but he couldn’t seem to speak, couldn’t utter a word, or make a sound.  He blinked the tears away and nodded, just once, hoping she could see what he wanted to say in his eyes.

She nodded back, just a little, and straightened up, lifting her chin with what looked like pride flaring to passionate life.  “Jack was a good boy,” she told him firmly. “A good _man_.”

Squeezing the bag, he nodded and touched his hat again before turning away. 

Before he made it back to the road, he was shaking, tears streaming down his face until he could barely see to drive.  When he was out of sight of the house, he pulled over, his right foot stomping the brake pedal most all the way to the floor, kicking up a huge cloud of dust around the old truck as he grated to a stop.

With trembling fingers, he reached for the paper bag and brought it into his lap.  Unrolling it and parting the flaps, he peered down inside it, and there was his dinner on a small stack of paper plates, covered over with aluminum foil.  Beside it was a Mason jar, its brass lid screwed on tightly.  No milk in it this time.  Mrs. Twist had given Jack’s ashes to him, substituting the ashes of burned trash in the urn they’d be burying in the family plot tomorrow.  She knew Brokeback Mountain was where Jack had wanted to rest in peace, and making sure that happened was the last gift she could give her son.

Carefully, Ennis lifted the jar out.  Setting the bag aside, he held the container in both hands, cradling it against his chest.  “Jack,” he whispered brokenly.  “My Jack.  My Jack.”  For many long minutes, he rocked what was left of his lover in his arms, letting his grief drip freely off his chin, until he was spent and exhausted. 

Wearily, Ennis wiped his face on his sleeve and eased the truck back onto the road, turning the wheel with his right hand.  He held Jack with his left, sometimes against his heart, sometimes with the cold glass pressed against his cheek or his lips.  “Lil’ darlin’,” he whispered to it now and then, more to comfort himself than anything.

He drove until he was as close to the mountain as he could get in the truck, then hiked the rest of the way in the next morning.  In the bright noontime sunshine, he opened the jar and set Jack free, on the spot where they’d made love that very first time.

Something loosened up inside Ennis then, and he felt better, better than he had for a long time. 

But there was still something missing.  It took him a couple of weeks to figure out what it was, and then almost four years to save up enough money to get it done. 

The small memorial stones were plain granite, bought from three different monument carvers in various towns.  Getting them up on the mountain was one hell of an ordeal, since he had to haul them in on horseback.  The stones were small but heavy, and he was afraid they might break in two before he got them where he was going.  Once he arrived and got the three stones buried together, though, a great weight lifted off him. 

One stone was a foot square and an inch thick, bearing only Jack’s first and last names.  The other matched it exactly, except it had ‘Ennis Del Mar’ carved into its polished face.  The third stone was two feet long by one foot wide, and was placed at the bottom of the two stones, almost like a base joining them together.  It read, _“We loved each other here first.”_ And under that simple sentence, just the date from that long-ago summer, _1963_.

He looked down at the stones, satisfied at last, and with a sigh, he covered them up with six inches of freshly dug earth.  In it he planted a whole bunch of flower bulbs and seeds, ones the local plant nursery had told him would do well in the mountains.  He set them in a perfect square over the memorial, made a border of river stones around the whole thing, and hauled river water to the plantings.

Finally done packing up his supplies and securing the horses, he washed his hands and glanced up at the sky for approval.  He took off his hat and stood respectfully for a few minutes, hanging his head in thought.  “Hope you like what I done, Jack. “  He shuffled his feet in their worn, scuffed boots.  “I know now, you was right.  We shoulda been together all them years, an’ I’m damn sorry I was so fuckin’ stubborn.  This don’t no way make up fer what happ’nd to you, but it’s all I can do; that’n look after yer Ma.”  He sighed.  “See ya when I get there, lil’ darlin’.” 

After another moment’s reflection, he stuck his hat back on his head.  He started to walk away and then thought better of it.  Turning, his tear-filled eyes fixed on the memorial site, he murmured huskily, “An’ I did love you, Jack Twist.  Never did tell ya, but I did.”  He hesitated a moment, his throat threatening to close up, his voice rough and deep.  “Still do.  Reckon I allus will.” 

He strode to the horses, mounted up, and rode away without a backward glance.

#  _Fifteen Years Later_

Ennis’ daughter, Alma Jr., and her husband, Kurt, looked down at the map, then around the clearing by the river.  The tree was there, but it looked like it’d been split by lightning, half of it fallen over and burned black.  The bend in the river was exactly like Alma’s father had drawn it.

She sighed and announced, “I guess this is the right place. Don’t you think so, Kurt?”

He wandered around, jumped onto a stump and did a 360 degree survey of the area, frowning as he thought about it.  “Maybe.”  He squinted, pushing his glasses up on his nose, and pointed to the far side of the fallen tree.  “Didn’t he say to look for a bunch of flowers?”

“Yeah.  He said they was in the shape of a square.” 

Kurt grinned.  “There they are, babe.  Tulips, columbines, daffodils, and crocus.  Looks like somebody’s garden.”  He hopped down off the stump and wandered over to the flowers, then knelt down beside the bed of colorful blooms her father had so carefully maintained over the years. 

It was time for them to finish what they’d come so far to do.  Throat and chest tight with emotion, her sight blurring, Alma unzipped the backpack her husband wore.  She reached inside and carefully lifted out a simple silver urn, which contained her late father’s ashes.  She held it close for a moment and whispered, “We’re here, Daddy.  It’s beautiful, just like you described it to me.”  She looked around at the breathtaking scenery.  “I can see why you loved it up here so much.”

She would never say aloud what her mother had told her about her father and Jack Twist, his old “fishing buddy.”  Kurt didn’t know, and she wasn’t going to share that with him.  She’d seen the shirts hanging in her father’s closet about a year back, when he’d fallen ill, and she’d started taking care of him.  She’d asked him about them, and he’d told her about Jack, about being just a teenager when they met, about their friendship; just enough for her to understand that her father had loved the man, loved him beyond reason, for all of his life.  Losing Jack Twist had broken her father’s heart, and he’d never gotten over it.  In the end, she thought that was what had killed him, not the cancer.

She’d had to think about all that, about what love really was, and what she knew of her father.  Although a stoic man of few words, he’d been a good person, and she knew he’d loved both his daughters with fierce devotion.  Alma Jr. had wanted him to be happy, but he could never be truly happy without love, and he couldn’t have the love for which he’d pined nearly his whole life. 

Nobody deserved that kind of pain.

If there were a God, then Alma hoped her Daddy was now in Heaven, with his Jack.

Alma looked down at the flowers around her feet and smiled through her tears. She bent down to pull at some grass that had stolen its way into the garden patch, tidying it up a little for him, promising herself to keep this up, to watch after his garden for as long as she lived, and her children after her.  This spot was important to maintain.  She didn’t really understand why, but if it’d been important to her father, then it was special.

Her husband stood up and stepped behind her, turning her downwind so the ashes wouldn’t blow back into their faces.  He slipped his arms around her waist and held her as she emptied the container, watching the fine powder falling among the blossoms, light streamers of ash floating away on the breath of a breeze.  Alma had given the two faded, tattered, blood-stained shirts to the funeral director, to cremate along with her father’s body.  He’d seen to it that they were burned with Ennis Del Mar, and they were now mingled with his ashes for all time. 

“Bye, Daddy,” Alma whispered as her tears flowed down her face. ”Now you’re free, back on Brokeback Mountain, where you belong, herdin’ fluffy white clouds with your friend Jack.” 

FIN


End file.
